Weirdsville

No pun intended - also not really giving away anything, because you have to find out the answer for yourself ... if you watch the movie that is of course. And this quite strange movie is really interesting. It is all over the place, but in that it does kind of copy or inherit the strangeness and the weirdness of its main characters ... off to Weirdsville then.

Really good actors in this too - I had no idea Wes and Scott had done a movie together! This is an odd one anyway. Add to that Taryn and you have quite the trio (of disaster?) ... they are in over their head for sure - but nothing that is not entertaining to watch. You have to keep close watch on what they try to do and where the story is taking us ... because there are some strange turns ... and now I think I have used all the words to describe something out of the ordinary ... quite fitting.

Slacker buddies Dexter Ryan (Scott Speedman) and Royce Gordon (Wes Bentley) are forced to sell drugs for Omar to pay off a drug debt. Royce's girlfriend Matilda (Taryn Manning) dies from an OD and the boys dispose of the body in the basement of a closed drive-in theater. A Satanic cult kills a guy upstairs and decides to kill the boys to use all four bodies. Instead, Matilda is revived and the trio escapes the cult. With Omar looking for his money, the boys decide to steal a safe from Jason Taylor (Matt Frewer).

Giving drugs to drug addicts for the purpose of selling to repay their debt to you seems to be a horrible idea. I'm just saying. Anyways, this Canadian indie is trying to be low grade Trainspotting with a dash of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. It is low grade and the product has been stepped on a lot. It can be seen in the fight between the blonde and the midget. It should be the most ridiculous visual fun. Instead, the directing lacks the energy to drive up the intensity. This has all the intentions and it has some good actors. It's just not as good as it wants to be.

I went to the movie thinking, this is gonna be stupid i just know it. but i was wrong. As much as these people who comment about the movie say its cliché and crap.. well i disagree. I think it was written excellently, the characters actually in depth and not total crack heads... for a movie surrounding an illegal substance, i think it was really great. there are moments where your like 'wtf is going on' but you can't help but laugh mainly because it's just so far out there. i liked the originality, and the timing like a previous commenter said nothing lasted longer then it should have. i think it was directed greatly and anyone who honestly thinks a movie to be cliché, either is too harsh, or doesn't know what goes into a movie to begin with. coming up with originality and intrigue is hard to do and i think Wennekers and Moyle both did a great job. :)

From Jaws as a lady, to a Canadian romp of Satanists, gangsters and fighting midgets, Weirdsville certainly lives up to its title. Allan Moyle, the director of 1990's Pump Up the Volume, directs another tale of disaffected youth featuring a pair of junkies as an entertaining double act, Royce and Dexter (Wes Bentley and Scott Speedman). Trying to steal money to pay back their thumb threatening local gangster, the plot includes over doses and slap dash midnight burials in reference to 90s film-cool, Shallow Grave and Pulp Fiction. But Moyle adds enough of his own visual exuberance to defy unflattering comparisons and his hallucinogenic effects lend extra scope to the irreverent caper humour. Music video quality moments are depicted in beautiful shots of drug fuelled euphoria including Dexter skating bare foot through the snow sprinkled streets of an Ontarian cityscape.

Occasionally the visual tricks jar in a Family Guy style but the interjections are smoothed over by our fortunately endearing duo and their dumb but smart dialog. Most enjoyably Weirdsville doesn't take itself too seriously and the ludicrous storyline is filled with bizarre non sequiturs; stopping to note a single green leaf that remains on an ice covered tree, for instance, is quite touching especially as they're on route to rob a millionaire's mansion. The nonstop pace and assortment of comic characters ensures that no minute drags on longer than it should, and the climax is appropriately gung ho. By turns genuinely engaging and laugh out loud funny, Weirdsville is daft but brilliant.

As for a stoner black comedy, the Canadian made "Weirdsville" is as customary as you can get in how it goes about trying to weird you out. Of course what happens is random, wacky and just bizarre (encounters with Satanists and dwarfs), but not too surprising when compared to films of the same ilk. Even so, I found it hard not to enjoy. Mainly for the combination between Scott Speedman and Wes Bentley, who work off each well enough of as the two junkies involved in a crazy night of unimaginable incidents. Speedman plays it mainly straight, where Bentley is rowdy. But the two have some amusing banter and interchanges thanks to a ridiculous, but restlessly smart script. Taryn Manning as the third wheel adds the bite.

Stoner Dexter and Royce accidentally assume their friend Matilda has died from an overdose on the stash they are meant to sell to payback their drug dealers. In the panic of the situation they decide to bury the body. While in the process of burying her in the basement of a drive-in movie theatre, they disrupt a satanic ritual sacrifice and Matilda awakens making the Satanists believe it's the work of Satan. Now the boys are trying to get to her before the Satanists do, while also trying to pull off a heist to pay back their intimidating dealer.

As expected, everything goes wrong for these two slackers. Just like the scene where Speedman's character heads to a grungy toilet to vomit to see a mouse swimming helplessly around bowl and Bentley's character enter to only flush it. The two are stuck in a predicament, which has no easy way out but to simply go all-out and what occurs is haphazard. Director Allan Moyle's style is reminiscent of his previous efforts in "Pump up the Volume" and "Empire Records", but on a cheaper feel. At times it feels like a home video. Still Moyle shows great pacing and flashy touches, as the visuals show some creativity, especially the drug- fuelled hallucinations and this suit's the fragmented style of the unusual narrative with numerous droll characters (Matt Frewer is very amusing in his small part). Still it could have been much weirder than what it was.

"Hey man. You have an icicle sticking out of your head."